Goals: OSIRIS-REx is designed to approach and study near-Earth asteroid 1999 RQ36 and ultimately collect samples from its surface. The samples will be returned to Earth for study.

Asteroids are leftovers formed from the cloud of gas and dust -- the solar nebula -- that collapsed to form our sun and the planets about 4.5 billion years ago. They contain the original material from the solar nebula, which can tell us about the conditions of our solar system's birth.